Comments

ITS fin to watch theists try to lay a trap…and fail over and over. If god where real and obvious would there be a need to set a trap in an effort to establish it?? Without fail when a theist starts by saying “before i get to my point I have a few questions” bells and whistles go off to people as sophisticated and experienced as Matt. Even I knew where the last foolish theist was going. Too funny. God. I love this show..hehehehe
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I chuckled how the last caller swore he wasn’t going to argue that complexity was his reason for thinking there must have been a designer, and then went on with his apple story to claim that the complexity of it all must mean that it was designed. Look at how intricate it is! (You mean complex?) What a doughnut. Also, you’re correct Matt, typical car engines don’t run at 100,000 RPM. Typical car, 2,000 to 5,000 … to 7,000 for a screamer. Some motor bikes, maybe 9,000. But 100,000? No. And he scoffed at you condescendingly and said, “oh, he’s sure they do.”

These design freaks who marvel at complexity, especially at the complexity of symbiotic relationships, like with the apple and the pooped out seed, misunderstand what evolution was saying. The reason there is something like birds pooping out seeds to aid in plant propagation is because that was the trait that won out and succeeded over all the other competing species that didn’t have that extra help spreading their seeds around. That’s why they gained an advantage and didn’t die out like all their soft seeded competitors. They had the better random fluke variation of being a plant with a harder seed, so that gave them an advantage over the other competitors. It’s now here for us to observe exactly because that randomly developed variation on a seed became a competitive advantage over plants that didn’t have birds helping them spread their seeds to far off places, with added fertilizer to boot.

If these people didn’t get told to hate evolution theory so much, maybe they’d actually read about it and understand the concept. It’s that those hard seeded trees fluked out and developed a trait … one that turned out to be so successful, that what do ya know, they won out and survived over their competitors. Then … oh my gosh … we can now witness that advantageous trait because … guess what … they’re still here! They didn’t die out like their soft seeded friends who didn’t have that advantage. People also don’t connect how, while our hominid species has been here for only three million short years, and even our own particular branch of our species only for about 250,000 years … that some of these plant based lifeforms have been trying out variations for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of years. Lot’s of time to try out many different combinations and develop some pretty complex advantages, even symbiotic ones with other life forms depending on each other. That’s the exact reason they succeeded and why we now see them around today to marvel at all their interesting (and sometimes complex) advantages that developed and allowed them to succeed.

So yes, we’re going to see some pretty neat, and fluky seeming, and even symbiotic traits emerging in the life forms that succeeded. It’s exactly because they developed those random variations, one’s that turned out to help them over other variants of their species, such as birds pooping out your seed all over the countryside because that variants seed was hard. The hard seed wasn’t designed first because it was cool … the tree succeeded exactly because it was a really successful advantage that emerged (compared to all the other variation attempts tried out by that same species.) That’s why it carried on and became the winning variant. The creationists sort of place the cart before the horse in that over repeated complexity argument and get it backwards, and mostly because they haven’t ever read a book on what evolutionary theory was actually even describing.

‘The timewaster’s experience’. That is what the show should be renamed to. Have a phone in and let one person dominate the show with nonsense. Is the object to convert the theists? or to point out the flaws in their logic and MOVE ON to another call? Please watch any episode from 10+ years ago and compare it to the garbage that is put out now.

Listened to this show for almost a decade at this point. Thank you as always Don and Matt for the patience and answers you give to your callers on a weekly basis. Some of these callers were painful, and hopefully they’ll reflect back on this call at some later point.

Anyways, just wanted to say keep on keeping on, and I’ll keep tuning in up here from the pacific north west.

Michael seemed cocky at the beginning and incredulous towards the end.

I want to be charitable and assume the Stan Lee Principle (Every comic is someone’s first, and this is their “first comic”), but some people are just so damn smug. Maybe it’s just me, but if I thought I had a knockout blow for atheism, I’d check and see if anyone else had tried it. Maybe even run it past a few people.

Wow. 999 episodes. And Brandon delivered his “evidence for god; guaranteed to make this the best episode ever”. (Clickbait for hosts?) How they gonna top THAT for number 1000? Seth sure won’t be able to top Brandon. After all, Brandon is armed with his 1611 Authorized By God Himself Edition of His Biography. And a +5 Cudgel of Smugness.

And…staTIStics.

I admit, I never asked myself “gee, I wonder if I’ll still be an atheist when they do their thousandth show”. And now… Well, the call isn’t done yet. (I dashed here to see if anyone was commenting on him yet.) So we’ll see. I feel my lack of faith wavering. Tune in next time to see if I make my saving throw.

PS Matt (on the off chance you’re reading comments; yeah, I know.) The word is “stipulate”. Not “Let’s pretend I grant all your points” or “Let’s say I’m conceding every point you’ve made so far. I’m not, but…”

(From the guy who made you a balloon hat at the AA Con in Texas. Or maybe Iowa. I forget. I’m betting that’s a pretty small list. Chatted and stumbled together “back to the hotel” after the pub crawl. But you were at the satellite hotel. So I had to stumble further to mine. I was drunk, but giddy. Had chatted privately with a hero/role model. Glad I made the trip from Ontario, Canada.)

“As you know, 137% of Bible scholars named Steve agree that Jesus was a real person. And since we happen to have a book about this real person…and it’s attested to by God…therefore God. No, silly, not THOSE bibles. They’re trash. The GOOD Bible. No, the other one. You know, the true one. Ipse Dixiecup”

Killian, I have yet to see you make a comment on the show that is actually helpful. You have had AXP staff read and comment on your comments. They basically told you to start your own show if you don’t like the way this one is run. You’ve been doing these crappy comments for months now and you haven’t gained one ally or experienced one bit of traction. If you don’t like the way the show is run, feel free to fuck right off and not watch it. You continued petulance about the show not being run the way you think it should is really boring and just outs you for the child you are.

To recap: You continually whine about the show. Hosts don’t care that you don’t like the show. Hosts recommend you start your own show. You continue to whine that hosts aren’t paying attention to an internet troll. Have I got it so far? Yeah, I thought so. Again, don’t like the show, don’t watch it.

Did you say time waster?? Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?? You cry every week about the waste this show has become….and yet you feel the need to watch it?? Perhaps your life is so empty……………jus say”n.

#10,,,Sam….

If you were truly interested in learning about the complexities of evolution you would be addressing leading scientists in the field or academia. But lets face it, you only want to stump posters here so you can claim some sort of victory….as if that moved you any closer to proving your magic genie. I always say…when theists attack evolution its an acknowledgement from them that they lack positive proof for their magic genie. Therefor, they try to cast doubt on evolution to make their fairy tale seem just as unreasonable…and call that a win! Even if we were to stipulate evolution was not sufficiently established…you would still need to prove your genie exists and creationism is true. But you cannot do that. At best you would have two competing wild hypothesis…neither one having enough evidence to establish veracity. Hence…welcome to agnostic atheism. No matter how you slice it, its where you end up. Frustrating for you. ain’t it?

The variation isn’t random. That’s what sexual selection is all about. The merging of two different sets of genes creates a new combination of genes the is slightly different from either of the two parents.

“The variation isn’t random. That’s what sexual selection is all about. The merging of two different sets of genes creates a new combination of genes the is slightly different from either of the two parents.”

Why should the genes merge, have variation and still produce a viable offspring?

You need to prove this from the chemistry. I’m using chemistry as the base since we can produce our own chemical reactions using atoms and molecules.

“Why should the genes merge, have variation and still produce a viable offspring?”

What? I have to go through the whole process of explaining the science behind sexual selection to you? I don’t think so. Stop yanking my chain.

Don’t come here and start trying to play that stupid gotcha game. I’m not gunna play. You don’t know shit about anything and you claim to have some revealed truth from a book because some other human told you it was the word of a god.

Why do grumpy creationists come to an atheist blog to demand a detailed education in biology? They get so peevish when no one wants to take on that task for them. Maybe they would be happier in a class where the professor’s job is to help them to understand? (But even there, no one would be spoon-feeding them.)

Sam is so dishonest it’s ridiculous. Or simply so ignorant and stupid that he needs to go back to high school science class. Everything in biology is chemistry, and everything that happens in evolution is in complete agreement with the chemistry that makes it happen. No scientific evidence has ever been found that evolution is not compatible with. There is no metaphysical why answer in science such as

Why should the genes merge, have variation and still produce a viable offspring?

, there is a causal why answer and we know and can trace the causal explanation for everything in the theory of evolution with chemistry. Sexual differentiation produces more variability, more variability provides more natural selection, more selection leads to improved survivability, and improved survivability leads back to more variability. A positive feedback loop that makes evolution not only what is true about life on earth, but inevitable, due to the fundamental chemistry facts that make up the universe.

Because 99.999 percent of variations turn out to not produce any helpful advantage and die out, and we can observe that in the fossil record. Or, it even produces a completely unhelpful variation, and then that version … in what amounts to a trial and error method … dies out, and we can see that in the fossil record too. If you’re too specialized … one flood or fire could wipe out your whole genetic line. That’s why the pooped out apple seed was an advantage … the bird spread your genes all over the place, and you weren’t at risk from only existing in one tiny area. If there was a fire, there were still some of your genes “over there” because the bird had distributed it to far flung locations. The trees that hadn’t done that, got wiped out in the local event. Gone from the gene pool. The hard seed was an advantage, though it hadn’t been planned that way in advance. It was mutant, but the mutation turned out to be a very helpful mutation.

But the point of how we know it’s random variation? Because more variations die than ever succeed. That is actually the antithesis of saying there was a very careful planner, or else there just would’ve been the excellent plan right from the start and all along, and not the 99.999% of mistakes that didn’t survive to reproduce their genes. We can see this through paleontological observation.

Example: crazy religious people won’t lift a finger about climate change thinking gods taking care of it. Well, that mutant mistake will go extinct then. See sam? You’re just a genetic mutant that’s eliminating itself from the whole gene pool. Good riddance too. And I agree with the others … do your own fucking research, or stay dumb if you prefer. Your choice.

Listening to ‘Brandon’, I was struck not only by the incompetence of his arguments, but their similarity to those of Pastor George from Pennsylvania. The voice even reminded me of him. I can’t be the only one to whom this occurred.

Great question. We can only explain God by what he tells us. Today we only have scripture. We can use science to determine if we are designed and created and whether the concept of God is plausible or not.

The way God tells us about himself is:
1. By physically being present so you can hear and see him.

Sam 22.24 – #39

But no, we can’t observe God.

Another mutually exclusive set of claims from you Sam? Proof you just make this shit up out of your head. Say goodbye Sam … or else address these mutually exclusive claims you keep making. It’s just your own made up nonsense you’re spewing. I think they are going to ban you from here for trolling in an attempt to ruin their blog with spam. You’re like a one man DOS attack. Why can’t you address any of the mutually exclusive contradictions you keep presenting?

So, then why do you claim to know about him? Like, duh? Just more contradictions.

And no, sorry Sam … now you’ve been caught lying. Your statement of “The way God tells us about himself is…” was an active statement. That was the context you used that in, telling someone how to go about getting closer to god, ow they should start tomorrow and go about it. See the context you used that statement in yesterday? You were claiming it as a thing that regularly happens … to a person you thought might get suckered into joining your cult. It was a recommendation for how they should get closer to god and get to know him. Now you’re lying and trying to alter the context of how you used that phrase.

Busted … lying. Changing your story for deceptive reasons. Also, showing how you’ll lie to someone from another religion to try and swoon them over to your particular cult. How can you even live with yourself being this flat out dishonest? You’re very immoral for someone claiming such piety. Just another charlatan … not even deluded, just flat out lying to promote their own sports team. That … is some pretty sick shit dude. What a loser.

I think I’ve been pretty consistent. No one today can claim to have seen. Even the prophets have not seen God (except for maybe Jesus). Moses has heard Gods voice and so did Job and the Children of Israel. But none of them have seen God.

You see Gumb. Knowing God does not mean seeing him. I don’t expect you to understand this. Knowing God is a realisation based on something internal and the use of your logical reasoning and observance of the world we live in.

The Quran says if God had wanted to everyone to know him he would have done it. God chooses who believes in God. Hence no believer is accountable for anyone else’s belief. I could show you miracles all day long but if GOd does not want you to believe you won’t. There are many people who don’t believe no matter what is explained to them. There are many people who will believe in God at the drop of a hat. This is just how it is. Does it make sense? Not at first but it does when you understand more deeply.

Just because you believe in God does not mean you are saved or will attain heaven.

That’s what I’m asking for. Demonstrate the chemistry with base atoms and molecules.

What the hell do you think molecular biologists and biochemists DO? Go to fucken school if you want everything explained. Do you want a specific example of the chemistry that causes coding errors in the DNA? Do you want boding energies showing how DNA is pushed into a double helix? Do you want protein polarity and diffusion kinetics demonstrating how proteins attach to DNA? Whatever you fucken want to know the information is available, you are just too stupid to comprehend what you don’t know.

No dipshit. You told another semi-believer something that would lead to believe that in your Abrahamic religion, they would actually get to witness god, that that’s how he would be communicating with them. It’s like you were tantalizing them and trying to recruit them with a lie, the same way tent preachers use slight of hand tricks to get recruits claiming those other religions require faith … but here we actually get confirmation it’s all true!

You tried to brag to a Buddhist that if they came over to your camp, they would actually get to converse with god. You’re a liar and a fraud Sam. You just outed yourself telling a hopeful new prospect a made up lie to try and tantalize them into following you. Odd they’re allowing you to preach like that here. I actually thought I read about that not being ok in the blog rules.

But ya, Sam, you flat out implied that in your religion you actually get to meet and converse, in the flesh, with god. That’s how you were trying to impress them. What an evil person you are Sam. No, you’re just trying to cover your phony ass.

@oldman There are “Atheist & Theist” YT channels, podcasts, etc already. So, if you seek that kind of fare…it’s out there.

They’ve already stated that religion gets enough airtime on a zillion other shows. (And all other media. And real estate.) So “helpful input” requesting a chair for theists…is of no interest to them.

@GumB.
Great comment. Even with the level of wry sarcasm and informal text style compatible with my own. I think the cast could read that reply the next time they encounter Argument From Seeds in Poop. Or from design. Or just on random shows to educate. Well done sir (or whatever).

One quibble though. You’re right about car engine rpm. But when he mentioned the 100k “rpm’s” I’m pretty sure he was referring to the rate that cell “motors” spin. So…even greater fail? Because the flagellum, I’m just guessing, spin at, maybe tens (hundreds?) of rpm, not tens of thousands.

(If so, would he have broken the Fractally Wrong Barrier and entered Dumb as a Plank Time?)

AETV’s first ever on-air theist guest, Baptist minister Kyle Miller. A soft-spoken gentleman, and not the sort of wild-eyed fundie cretin you’d all like us to tear from limb to limb, but nice to have as a guest. Part of Russell’s goal on today’s show was to demonstrate atheists and theists can have civil discussions on a topic of mutual interest without having the whole thing turning into a Bill O’Reilly screaming match

““You can only know about God IF he tells you about himself. That applies to ALL of creation. The way God tells us about himself is:

1. By physically being present so you can hear and see him.””

Did you not read the “IF” or are you wilfully ignorant. If you read the Book Job, God made them hear his voice. Moses heard the voice of God. Jesus said the angels of children see God everyday. When did I say God makes himself present amongst all believers.

well well well….i seemed to have kicked the hornets nest which is more commonly known as Sam. You said:

“We can only explain God by what he tells us. Today we only have scripture. We can use science to determine if we are designed and created and whether the concept of God is plausible or not.

But no, we can’t observe God. Not yet anyway.”

HAHAHAHA…..Sam you seem to want to tell us who your genie is and how it communicates with humans. Perhaps taking a step back and demonstrating its existence might be helpful? Good luck with that buddy! AND FOR CHRISTS SAKE (lol) telling us what your genie said in the by bull in response makes me almost feel sorry for you.

If irrationality and cognitive dissonance proved God…after reading your posts….we’d all be theists.

BTW..notice that after we put Sam in touch with actual experts in the field of evolution like he requested…..Sam is still farting around here. Just further evidence of how dishonest and disingenuous Sam actually is.

Sam likes his magical story. To Sam. life is big and veddyy scarrrrrwwy!!! Having a genie to watch over him brings Sam the warm and fuzzies! And what bliss for him to pretend to know he will suck his genies toes for eternity!!!

You haven’t finished with this one. I mean, you basically replied with what I expected, if not verbatim, so I’m not exactly shocked here, but you haven’t made a case for why the model in question isn’t a valid explanation. Depending on your value for “random,” it may be impossible to have a random event in the universe. That will never get you any closer to the argument you want to support, however.

@Sam: if God choose who he wants to believe, and he does so by appearing to them, then why are you even trying to proseltyse? If God wants us to hear his voice, he has the power to do so. You don’t don’t seem to have that capacity. Speakig of, t90bb’s got a point. You were given links to someone with experience both in the field and as a communicator of such ideas. Why not go there instead of poking around here?

Sam from the Uk wrote : ” Great question. We can only explain God by what he tells us. Today we only have scripture. We can use science to determine if we are designed and created and whether the concept of God is plausible or not.

I find this brand new notion that the sky daddy has already previously decided who would believe and who wouldn’t believe … to be a curious new invention by these people. It conveniently moves judgement and condemnation of other people by followers … up into the present (in the social sense, not in the religious sense.) Now, instead of “you will be judged at death” it means “you basically already have been judged, because god didn’t make you a believer.”

Now, just the act of proclaiming an irrational and insane belief out loud means, by default, that god has already assessed you and judged you to be a special chosen one. Conversely, it also now means that to not believe … automatically implies that god has already judged you and rejected you as being unclean and not worthy.

How convenient for them. What a head trip that is to lay on someone.

This is a very recent invention (this never used to be a declaration of any religion that I can recall, and is definitely a recent and newly crafted interpretation.) It demonstrates clearly that the whole thing is just about malignant narcissism, ego, and a compulsion for self righteousness (and most often just twisted into being used for the condemnation and then abuse of others.) To me, it makes it pretty obvious that this is all just about mental illness and self glorifying psychopathy.

“My declaration of belief alone now means god already decided I’m special sometime in the past.”
“Your disbelief, all by itself, now means god has already decided you’re not worthy.”

Now, with this new twist … the judgement isn’t in the future. Now, in their minds, it has already happened.

That’s just plain and simple self serving narcissism.

It seems to me this notion is brand new and wasn’t ever around before, which I find to be curious. This is a very socially damaging new thing they’ve gone and made up here. Now, in their minds, any sort of supposed judgement by god has basically already happened in the past … they’re special, and you’re not, end of discussion. All that is, is more food for psychopaths who say “I believe” to justify abusing more people. It’s not god … it’s clearly just destructive narcissism.

GumB Frankly don’t give a damn. If they think their god has pre judged me and found me wanting, then they can just go fuck themselves, because I don’t care. Their god already makes more than half the planet non believers and they just now are figuring this out? This is not a new notion at all and its more much ado about nothing.

I hear you, but for me, I do choose to care. It’s the sort of rationalization they come up with that leads to groups of people abusing other groups of people, which is something I do chose to speak out against. I suppose if I didn’t have a concern about the damage religion does to society, I wouldn’t really have a reason for even being here at the blog at all. This does appear to be a new twist to me, a new rationalization, and I just considered it worth it to point out the ramifications of the new notion, to analyze the trap others will no doubt be swept up by. Sometimes concern is about looking out for the other guy too, and about working toward a better social atmosphere for all of us by helping others to spot destructive thinking and psychopathy.

But ya, as if I’m rattled by such a dumb notion. However, that wasn’t really my point.

If you were a single mother … stuck by circumstances living in Utah … and people broke into your house and dragged your kids off to church, and a call to police did nothing because the police are members of the cult too, then it probably would concern you what religion does to people’s minds, even if you aren’t ever going to be swayed by it yourself personally. You might even become a social activist about it and choose to speak out against it. Obviously, as an example, Matt isn’t fooled by the con. So, why does he even bother with this show then? Obviously, he does it for SOME reason other than just to shore up his own position, right? I would guess he at least partially does it to educate and raise awareness in people.

But I do get what you’re saying … obviously. I’m just trying to help others see through these things too, because many can’t. I hope that sort of analysis is ok here.

@GumB “I find this brand new notion that the sky daddy has already previously decided who would believe and who wouldn’t believe … to be a curious new invention by these people.”

I’m not sure it’s a new notion. I’ve heard the 144,000 notion from non-Mormon folks most of my life, so God clearly does choose on some level. Fjurther, I have been told for several years now that God will speak to me someday and I will be a believer. This isn’t all that dissimilar from experiences MAtt Dillahunty has referenced, and while two peopl;e isn’t a huge number, it does make me think there may be more people out there hearing that God will some day reveal himself to them and THEN they’ll be a believer.

It just seems like this is a variant of personal revelation, which is in itself a fairly old concept.

this brand new notion that the sky daddy has already previously decided who would believe and who wouldn’t believe
[…]
This is a very recent invention (this never used to be a declaration of any religion that I can recall, and is definitely a recent and newly crafted interpretation.)
[…]
It seems to me this notion is brand new and wasn’t ever around before

the belief that God appointed the eternal destiny of some to salvation by grace, while leaving the remainder to receive eternal damnation for all their sins, even their original sin. The former is called “unconditional election”, and the latter “reprobation”. In Calvinism, people are predestined and effectually called in due time (regenerated/born again) to faith by God.

Thanks for the input. I was just honing on the angle that if you haven’t been called already, you won’t be either. That was new to me.

Also, I’ll clarify that I have no association with Mormonism. I heard that story, and thousands of others, after spending a year on the RfM website (Recovery from Mormonism.) I was there trying to make sense of all the hostile passive aggressive bullshit we were having to put up with after moving onto a street where three very active Mormon BIC (born in the cult) families surrounded us on all sides and across the street. Asking all the exMormon folks questions and hanging around there was a great way to preemptively ward off their stressful and costly assaults on my family and our property. You wouldn’t believe how uniform their shunning tactics are across the whole continent, proving it wasn’t just some bad apples. No, it was just standard dick procedure for them. Now guess who’s afraid of who though, lol.

What a depraved and immoral lot they are. The exMormons were a riot though. Good to see the humanity returns after the toxic influence is removed.

Chill dude. You’re young, you don’t know much yet. Problem is you’re being brainwashed by the media and the other crazy atheists on this forum.

Forget about what I said about God choosing who will believe. That’s irrelevant to me, you and the rest the of believers. What matters is what you do in life and what kind of person you. That’s what you can control.

You don’t believe in God therefore you don’t know anything. If you understood the concept of God then you would understand that God has to know who is worthy of saving. It cannot be left to other believers or chance to save us. If God doesn’t know who is worthy of saving then he is not God. He may be a powerful creator and have immense knowledge but if there is the tiniest thing that God doesn’t know or something that God can’t do then he is not God. He is just an immensely powerful and knowledgeable being.

Also forget about asking why God does things if he knows the outcome. That’s a different topic.

Another thing. I know that atheists get upset when they hear that they are going to hell and the believers are going to heaven. Most of you guys can try brushing it off but I know you feel hurt inside.

WHen I was an atheist I felt the same. I asked my muslim friend if atheists were going to hell and he said yes. I said “even if the atheist does good all his life and is just being honest that he doesn’t believe in God”. He said yes. I said “how can that be fair?”. He just said that’s just how it is. I said what if there is an atheist who does good all his life but a believer who lies, cheats, sins yet believes in God, will the believer make it heaven and the atheist get hell? He said yes. I was very angry and upset. This was just plain unfair, gross injustice.

Anyway now I know my muslim friend was ignorant of the Quran. Sure he had a beard and wore the garbs at times but when I asked him if he understood the Quran he simply said no.

Here’s what the Quran says. Only God can guide a person. Only God can make them believe. No injustice will ever be done to any human being regardless of what they believe. Believers are warned time and time again to be righteous, they are the ones who are being warned the most about the hereafter. No believer has any guarantee of heaven unless God personally says so. That means no believer today can judge or say who will be punished in the hereafter or who will be successful.

Stop being brainwashed by the media and other believers. Read the books yourself and judge for yourself.

Don’t you think the believers realise how bizarre talking ants and birds sound? Of course we do. BUT reliability should not be based on whether something is too incredible to be true. It should be based on a lot more information than that.

84. Sam….how is the correspondence with actual scientists going?? feel free to post your discourse here. Good to hear you agree how silly it is for a “wholey” book to claim that ants can talk…lol. There may be hope for you still.

I wait in anticipation for you to stump academia!!!

It is clear that you really want to establish your religion as true. Considering your magic genie wants to be known…do you have any explanation as to why it is so difficult for you and other believers to establish said Genie?? It seems that genie of yours has left you in the middle of a battlefield with a water pistol. Why would it do that?? Unless ofcourse, its just a twisted genie that likes to toy with humans. Why would your genie want you to fail so pitifully simply showing it exists?? Kinda makes you think, no? Even if your genie actually exists…considering what its doing to you…requiring you to argue for it in light of such pitiful evidence, its got to be pretty much a dick huh?

a) Sam does a fine job of turning anyone on the fence away from religion. Nice!

b) Sam, through exposure, will eventually have so much cognitive dissonance going on in his head that eventually he will toss out all his fallacious conclusions, realizing he has been in error. Seriously, over time, exposure to reason does sink in. Without even realizing what he’s doing to himself, a few years from now, Sam will be dropping his religion as a result of being exposed to all of this rational thinking. It does creep up on you like that, then … wham, the big epiphany strikes out of the blue! Nice!

c) Sam is actually a closet atheist already. He’s just waiting for the right time to come out. That’s why he likes it here. Of course the mods will let him stay until he works through this difficult time. How compassionate of them. Nice!

@GumB the main reason I brought up Mormonismm is because the 144,000 claim is often most associated with Mormonism, and my aim was to be clear I hadn’t just heard of it through the LDS folks. My intent was not to tie you to Mormonism. My brain sometimes shorthands and goes from A to D in anticipation of B and C.

If the stories are accurate, Jesus spent most of his time with the poor? right? It seems to me that most of the people would not have been able to read. Why would he have a book handed down as word and wishes of God and depend on another man to translate to him how he should or should not live his life. This concept is very dangerous. If we are all his children, then it would make sense to me that God would mandate a personal relationship with him directly. If the book has the path of salvation, one only needs to accept Jesus Christ as his savior, and he is saved. Each person must accept Jesus into their hearts, right? Why would he design such a complex system and demand a personal statement? The basic premise of the argument is not to allow organizations to form that would do whatever is required of them to please God when it involves taking personal liberties. Without a personal relationship where God can speak clearly and mandate his will, there is nothing that prevents people from convincing others from drinking the Kool-Aid. It is possible that there are forces that created this entire scenario and it is plausible that we were a cosmic accident. We have 4,200 or so different religion’s worldwide and all of them cannot be correct if there is only one way to get to heaven. The main point might be that killing another or treating them less than another is inherently wrong. For now, we might consider that man is the reason for good and bad in the world. We might think about developing laws that uphold equality for all; we can figure out simply by our five senses and empathy for one another. Would the masses go out and kill, rape and pillage because there is no point to life if daddy cannot hold or hands. I would think that we would, as a people unite, and do what we can for one another, if for no other reason than exercising our executive functioning skills. The reason is simply reason itself. If one cannot let go of the notion of heaven, then one can think of it this way. If one is just and kind to go to heaven, then the omnipotent one may deny. If one is just to avoid hell, then it is plausible that one might be sent there. If one is just for the sake of being just….then we all win in this life and for those that are bound for heaven and it is possible, then you will be happy. That is a win, win situation for all humanity. To say that “we cannot know what moral or ethical behavior can be without the notion of God” I suggest that Most of us learned what tools we would need to be moral and ethical in kindergarten. I am offended as a human being to suggest otherwise.

@SamFromUK: “Forget about what I said about God choosing who will believe. That’s irrelevant to me, you and the rest the of believers. What matters is what you do in life and what kind of person you. That’s what you can control.”

But you go on to say that if you don’t know God, you don’t know anything, and given you’ve established God controls who believes, then you’ve set up that knowledge is also out of our control, making this whole thing kind of pointless.

“Another thing. I know that atheists get upset when they hear that they are going to hell and the believers are going to heaven. Most of you guys can try brushing it off but I know you feel hurt inside.”

Just a tip: “when I was an atheist” is going to set off virtually anyone’s spider-sense. However, saying “I was upset because ‘my Muslim friend’ said his imaginary friend was going to send me to Hell” is a poor way of arguing that anyone else feels that way. Did God whisper in your ear? Asking for my Jewish friend who is totally real and not as made up as the atheist at the airport.

“Stop being brainwashed by the media and other believers. Read the books yourself and judge for yourself.”

I mean, I’m not even sure how to handle this one. On the one hand, you just cited the Quran claiming only God can guide us, so preaching this is useless, unless you’re God. Are you God?

On the other hand, there’s this repeated notion that you know what other people know. Telling someone they’re young and therefore don’t know anything (which seems to contradict your God claims), telling the same person that it must hurt their feelings to hear they’re going to go to an imaginary place, insinuating that the problem is we…just haven’t read your holy fables.

The only thing necessary to make us not believe is the fables themselves.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to the airport so I can screw with some apologists.

No problem. I was just clarifying, lest someone think my atheism came out of a dashing escape from almost being whisked away to Kolob. I also enjoyed sharing a bit of my “brush with lds neighbors” story. I would also like to credit those fine folks over at RfM for challenging some of my own faulty thinking and for giving me a good practical demonstration of applied critical thinking. Some of them over there are very good at spotting logical fallacies in what people type, being that it was the tool they used to extricate themselves from the bind they once found themselves in. They really are an interesting bunch over there. I recommend RfM to anyone involved in the lds church, they’ll sure set you straight.

Wiki points out the 144,000 reference and shows it popping up in several places. My favorite being …

“The satirical Church of the Subgenius believes that somewhere between 144 and 144,000 people will be taken with the Xists aboard the “pleasure saucers”.

Sure. Pleasure saucers. And you get your own talking snake and a pocket full of talking ants too. What a great place it will be. Your stateroom on the saucer will have 72 virgins waiting on you hand and foot. What a great place it will be. I will be there just as soon as sams god grows my finger back that I lost while in the army. Your move sam. Want me to believe? Grow my amputated limb back and im your gods for eternity. Easy peasy, so get on it.

“Forget about what I said about God choosing who will believe. That’s irrelevant to me, you and the rest the of believers. What matters is what you do in life and what kind of person you. That’s what you can control.”

Oh, we have to forget when trolly trollerson misspeaks do we? We’re not supposed to read the stuff that contradicts the other stuff.. hmmmm, sound like a book I know.

So you have to be a good person even though you are already damned? Er, why?

“I think some of you atheists love to hear theists try to convince you of God. Maybe you just like the attention?

Anyway, carry on mocking and ridiculing. Let’s see how anyone of you can avoid death.”

Nah not really. I think you’re an idiot, like most people here. I don’t really want to hear circular reasoning and contradictions and lies ad nauseum.

Umm, and how do you intend to avoid death? You do realise the stories they tell you that you swallow hook line and sinker are predicated on your psychological inability to accept death don’t you? That when some tells you that there is a way you can cheat the inevitable you believe it because you want to believe?

Interesting how all of a sudden it’s the fault of everyone else posting on here isn’t it.

Why won’t these people see reason? Sam cries. Well because you haven’t presented any that’s why.

You can’t expect people to swallow your beliefs because – this verse says this, or this verse says that.

You actually have to present evidence. Not make assertions like a seed is a miracle. What happens when science can actually make a seed from scratch? What then? Does the god of the gaps recede even further into an ever shrinking gap?

Arrogance? Because we won’t accept your rubbish? Because we demand evidence that the almighty allah isn’t just the figment of the imagination of a 7th century psychopath? That is arrogance? How about the arrogance it takes to assert that armed with nothing more than verses from said book that we should bow down and accept your world view.

Rude.. I just need to point people back to all of the comments you have made as soon as people said to you they don’t accept your reasoning.

It’s not good enough to come on here and quote scripture and expect people to do as the have done for centuries, which is to accept the authority of the church.

The authority of the church was built on threat of death to non believers. We don’t have that threat these days and lacking the threat religions are failing to convince people through reason that their beliefs are valid. So if you come on here and go “look, you should believe because my holy book says so” what else do you expect other than the response you get?

I have no desire to escape death. I live each day to the best of my ability. If I cannot help someone on any given day, I at least strive to do no harm. Some days are better than others. My life has its ups and downs..I tend to enjoy it.

That said…I fully realize I am going to die. Death does not frighten me at all…its the dying part that makes me uneasy. But I will survive that…until I don’t. It would be wonderful if I had reason to believe that upon my death I would somehow experience a eternal orgasm. But I am perfectly fine with my non existence. Like they say….the time before I was born seemed ok..lol.

I’m having my own anecdotal experience over here, but it is a poignant one. I purposely didn’t correct Sam when he first made an assumption about my age, then proceeded to convince himself that he was right about his erroneous assumption, then watched as he mocked me and moved forward with a narrative that he was correct about his assumption about my age. I intentionally didn’t correct him wondering how he’d play that.

It’s anecdotal, because only I here know my actual age. However, it was a clear demonstration to me of how easily Sam can convince himself something that isn’t true, and then proceed forward with a narrative that completely false assumption was correct. He started acting … as if it were true. THAT … demonstrates the sloppy thinking that he’s also used to convince himself of the legitimacy of his religion. He thinks he’s correct, and then moves forward under the assumption that he is correct.

@GumB: I was curious about that. Whether or not Sam knew your age (perhaps you had mentioned it in a prior thread or something), or was just assuming out of convenience. There’s a lot of front-loaded assjumptions in his posts, so I was guessing he didn’t know.

I also kind of wonder what constitutes “young.” I’m pushing 40, which makes me wonder at what point I’m going to not be “young” anymore so I can know stuff. Though I suppose that goalpost was shifted already anyway.

I think he threw out 20 years old as his guess, so maybe that’s his threshold before knowledge can begin? /sarc

That’s the problem with all of the mental hierarchical structures that the judgement within religion creates. Twenty year olds can’t know, women can’t know, a Buddhist can’t know, “them people I subjectively don’t approve of over there” can’t know … bla, bla, bla. Stepping back, it’s obvious that all it does is fuel an ego problem and create malignant narcissists. Nobody knows … but ME! I know … me … not you ! How convenient. Everybody beneath them on the ladder is just stupid and worthy of their contempt. This is what mentally organizing things and assigning value to them based on a hierarchy does to people’s perceptions; it gets acted out in how they treat people.

That predisposition was demonstrated in Sam’s treatment of me as he wrote me off based on a mere placement of me somewhere along his mental hierarchy (beneath him, being the key location to make note of.) In this case, based on my age (which he wasn’t even accurate about … proving it was all just arbitrary anyway.) But he still wrote me off, he fully acted on it, it became very real to him. That’s antisocial thinking, and it produces division and strife in social relationships. Toxic, is the word. Discord, is the result. It can even breed hate.

@Sam

Let’s see how anyone of you can avoid death.

Don’t go away mad. My hope for you is that you stop being so obsessed with your death and about what happens after you’re dead. Someone has got you overly focused on it. The Mormons I know spend every waking hour other than when they’re at their jobs immersed in mind numbing (and quite frustrating to them) church activities to prepare for their death. And they pay a lot of money to the church as well, sometimes people’s entire estate is even willed to the church, just to ensure they’re ready and paid up for judgement day. Can’t you see the scam there? It all boils down to you thinking you’re going to win an “eternal life” prize for following a bunch of self damaging procedures in order to qualify for a ticket in the lottery … while you throw away this life in the process. Some people even start to value THIS life so little, that they’ll disregard the natural biosphere that actual supports them … relegating it to being irrelevant and unimportant on their trek to heaven, just a garbage dump on the way to somewhere better. It’s a ridiculous way to spend all your thoughts. It’s really just emotional escapism, and it has demonstrable negative consequences.

Yes Sam, life is scary, but it’s also beautiful. I don’t fear dying. I’m not saying it will be easy or fun, but I don’t spend my days anxious about it. I’m certainly not going to get so distracted by thoughts about it that I’m going to start flagellating myself with a cat ‘o nine tails or beating my wife based on instructions from some afterlife obsessed death cult. What a self absorbed, wasteful way to live your life and waste all your thoughts. Whenever I die, I’m ready, and I have no worries about any of it at all. I wish you could find that peace too, because you obviously haven’t. I hope you eventually think your way out of religion. The people here were actually trying to help you, you know. You were never going to convince anyone here about your religion. There, that was me preaching. All the best to you, and no hard feelings.

“Yes Sam, life is scary, but it’s also beautiful. I don’t fear dying. I’m not saying it will be easy or fun, but I don’t spend my days anxious about it. ”

If people thought it out, they would fear eternal life more than they could possibly fear dying. I don’t think the people who wrote this doctrine of enternal life thought it out very well.

When the average person lives to maybe 40, a long lived person lives to 70, it seems you don’t have enough time on this planet. The people of biblical times ability to conceptualise eternity was probably quite limited. If you imagine eternity as around 5,000 years it may sound pretty cool.

However, one caller to the show conceptualised it thus. Eternity is being able to visit every single atom in the universe for a million years each and still not be finished.

I wouldn’t agree to help this guy dig up his gold, contract or not. There is something hinky going on. What rational reason is there for him paying me $10,000,000 to help him when he could hire an excavator for $125 an hour and finish the task in 1/1,000th the time.

Just throwing out “Just get rid of skin cancer” and making the bold assumption that it is better from what we have now, is, well, a bold assumption. Maybe a better designed universe is one where people live shorter lives so we don’t destroy the one planet we are stuck with.

There’s just no way to know that this is not the best designed universe possible. There’s no way to know either way.

So the argument towards the caller was rather off point. It’s just like when the believers make arguments by throwing out analogies and lame examples. It was a rather disappointing argument from Matt and Don, who usually don’t reach for analogies as arguments.

@GumB but dammit, I am one of God’s chosen! I am special! How could I possibly be wrong?

@Shaun the funny thing is, I wouldn’t mind having a lifespan like those listed in the beginning of the Bible. If I could be 500 and spry enough to build an ark (or “build an ark,” because it’s still fantastical), I’d consider that a pretty good lifespan. I don’t know what I’d do with myself after 10,000 years, though.

I know Star Trek Voyager is not among people’s favourites, but I really liked the episode where a Q wanted the right to die because he considered continued existence suffering. It got me thinking about how awful true immortality must be.

@Mac Dude the beginning of that whole call made me think of the Nigerian Prince scam. I was waiting for the catch that it would only cost me my bank account….

This guy brought up my favorite claim for the divinity of jesus: he (jesus) showed everyone he was god through his works. So many people were convinced he was god, that paul had to write letters to the gentiles in greece and rome to create christianity. Israel, where the actual witnesses lived, remained jewish. Things that make you go hmmm? All religions are b.s. but christianity is a special kind of crap.

Jehovah’s Witnesses commemorate Christ’s death as a ransom or “propitiatory sacrifice” by observing the Lord’s Evening Meal, or Memorial. They celebrate it once per year, noting that it was instituted on the Passover […] Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught that this is the only celebration the Bible commands Christians to observe.

Of those who attend the Memorial, a small minority worldwide partake of the unleavened bread and wine. This is because Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the majority of the faithful have an earthly hope. Only those who believe they have a heavenly hope, the “remnant” (those still living) of the 144,000 “anointed”, partake of the bread and wine. In 2015, the number of persons who partook worldwide was 15,177, whereas the number who attended was 19,862,783.

You can’t directly question someone on it because it’s the holy spirit y’know. It’s a personal thing. But I remember every year at this Memorial of Jesus’ death, we would be suspiciously watching if anyone was gonna partake of the bread and the wine, to signify that they were one of the anointed. It’d raise an eyebrow.

Y’know, it might be some 40 year-old person who’s been a JW for 5 years, and you’re going, “WTF, how could they qualify and I not?”

Ex-JW: I’ve known quite a few [anointed] through the years. […] Something to the effect of… a person’s spirit interacts with God’s spirit, and then you just know. So if you are, you’re supposed to just know.

Jeremy Beahan: Wow, that’s gotta be an interesting group if they get to self-select.

Ex-JW: I’ve never known one that’s not been pretty- Um, I don’t wanna say crazy, but… not been a well-adjusted group, by the people I’ve known.

I’ve heard and/or read (from bible scholars) that some of the most fantastic bible stories were intentionally nigh unto impossible to believe because it takes such greater faith to believe them, thus showing you are much better if your do believe!